Heart Rhythm Medicine, Health, Cycling, Fitness.
There was a flurry of words written today about preventing the rare but tragic occurrence of sudden cardiac death in a young person. At the heart of the debate lies the issue of how best to protect the young from dying. I think it’s worth making two more points on this issue. Treating Sudden Death: [...]
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You all know how I feel about the value of education in the treatment and prevention of heart disease: It is self-evident and unquestionable. Along the lines of educating patients and docs, and in the spirit of February being Heart Health Awareness month, I believe The Heart Rhythm Society (HRS) deserves strong mention for their [...]
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Whenever someone asks about the cost of an ICD (Implantable Cardiac Defibrillator), an image pops into my brain. The image that I see is how the ICD gets handed to me during the implant surgery. Imagine: Careful. Cautious. Consider how you would pass your new brand new iPad 2 to a friend, then multiply that [...]
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It’s heart-wrenching when young athletes die of sudden cardiac death (SCD). This week, the death of Wes Leonard, a Michigan high school star athlete, was especially poignant since he collapsed right after hitting the game-winning shot. This sort of tragedy occurs about one hundred times each year in America. That’s a lot of sadness. The [...]
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My friend called to tell me what happened. His voice cracked. Jim thought that it was a normal Sunday morning ride. He was meeting his friends, and they were riding their normal route, on roads called Covered Bridge, Sleepy Hollow and Wolf Pen Branch. It was one of those Sunday mornings in Kentucky that makes [...]
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The implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) is a life saving therapy. But, like any medical treatment there are potential adverse effects. With ICDs, we are trying to prevent this…(a slide from the 1980s) But in doing so we sometimes get this… Which is supposed to look like this…(same patient–hours later, with no intervention) ICDs have been [...]
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